My Favourite Books Of 2014

A couple of these choices appeared in last weeks Sydney Morning Herald, but I've expanded that piece to include my "classic" fiction book of the year, my favourite history book of 2014, my favourite mysteries, my favourite audiobook and my favourite science book of the year.

My non-fiction book of 2014 is H Is For Hawk by Helen Macdonald. Sharing an obsession with raptors with her father, Macdonald is sent into an, uhm, tailspin after his death and impulsively decides to buy a goshawk. She buys hawk-food, stuffs her fridge in Cambridge full of it and attempts to become a real life falconer. Winner of the 2014 Samuel Johnson non fiction prize this is perhaps the best book on birds since JA Baker's classic, The Peregrine.

My fiction book of 2014 is The Martian by Andy Weir a self published success story about an engineer trapped on Mars desperately trying to survive with no air and no food. Surprisingly funny, meticulously researched, and chock full of drama this is the book that should have won the Hugo and Nebula Award. It takes a writer of real talent to generate so much tension from a man trying to grow potatoes in a tent... (Currently being turned into a film by Ridley Scott who is overdue to make a good movie...) 

My audiobook choice of the year is Longbourn by Jo Baker. An upstairs/downstairs (mostly downstairs) look at the life of the Bennett sisters during the events of Pride & Prejudice. As I said on the telly if I'd written this book it would have been an unreadable, angry pseudo Marxist screed but Jo Baker is a lot less angry than I am and her book is wonderful. One of the best novels about laundry work I've encountered since Martin Eden. The narration by Emma Fielding is superb. 

My classic fiction book of the year is The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker. An office worker's thoughts as he spends his lunch hour buying shoelaces, eating a hot dog and reading Marcus Aurelius. It's like Virginia Woolf's The Waves if The Waves was, you know, good.

My history choice for 2014 is Paris After The Liberation 1944 - 1949 by Anthony Beevor and Artemis Cooper, which tells the tale of the trials, tribulations, attempted coups and eventual return to normalcy of Paris following the liberation. It's particularly good on who really liberated Paris (mostly black African and Spanish troops serving in the Free French forces (who were then - of course - largely excluded from the victory parade)) and I liked the stuff on who really worked for the Resistance and who just lied about it (Albert Camus and Samuel Beckett were patriots, Sartre was a liar). 

Best mysteries of the year? Well this is incredibly tough for me because I read so many great crime novels this year. Part of it, of course, is for my job as a reviewer but many books I just read for fun because I love a well honed mystery or thriller. My favs of 2014 were probably the new ones by: Michael Robotham, Stuart Neville, Eoin McNamee, Alex Barclay, Ian Rankin, Belinda Bower, Cathi Unsworth, Claire McGowan, James Lee Burke, Declan Burke, Samantha Hayes, Garry Disher, Angela Savage, Lucy Caldwell, Dave Whish-Wilson, John Connolly, Arlene Hunt, John McFetridge, Pam Newton, Gerard Brennan & Steve Cavanagh. Not a Scandinavian among them... The worst crime novel I read this year was by this guy called Stephen King, which I reviewed, here. 

My philosophy/intellectual history book of the year is The Age of Nothing by Peter Watson. This is a book about the contemporary existential dilemma: how best to live in a - largely - Godless era. Watson had me at the introduction where he mentions 4 of my favourite contemporary moral philosphers: Thomas Nagel, Ronald Dworkin, Jurgen Habermas and Charles Taylor.

My science book of the year is Our Mathematical Universe by Max Tegmark which has become something of controversial best seller. Tegmark believes that we are living in 4 different levels of multiverse and that we're all just really numbers anyway. Being perfectly honest I didn't quite understand the last fifth of the book, but I'll bet it was pretty smart stuff. You can read my full review, here. 

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie; The Martian by Andy Weir

I listened to 2 science fiction audiobooks recently: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie and The Martian by Andy Weir. Reviews of both below:
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Ann Leckie has been hailed as an extraordinary new voice in science fiction. In a genre dominated by male writers, a largely male readership and a male perspective, Leckie's novel, Ancillary Justice, about a genderless society has been seen as a useful corrective. In a remarkable achievement the book won all the major science fiction awards this year: the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Arthur C Clarke Award and the Locus Award. This unification of all the belts will undoubtedly bring in many readers who don't normally bother with the genre. Ancillary Justice is space opera that deals with the consequences of a fairly benign hegemonic civilization taking over a world that dared to oppose them. Told from the perspective of a ship AI in a human body (the book never explained why the ships needed frail human bodies when robot technology was so advanced) it's a novel about guilt and regret with a unique view of gender tropes as a main subtheme. Female pronouns are used throughout Ancillary Justice and all the main characters are described as being female (although this isn't really the case). I think it's great that the major sci-fi award giving bodies are finally recognising the talent of female writers, writers who challenge the conventions of dull male sci-fi with its explosions and star ships and the like. The promotion and recognition of female sci fi writers is a long over due corrective in what is often a bit of a boys club. There's only slight problem with all this and that is the fact that Ancillary Justice, alas, isn't that interesting a book. Yes its Iain Banks style intelligent space opera but the story is a little slow even for me (& I dig slow), the characters are weak, the ideas have a recycled feel to them. If you've read a lot of sci-fi you'll probably recall that Ursula Le Guin was doing gender politics 40 years ago in the classics The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed. If Ancillary Justice is as sophisticated and philosophical as science fiction gets in 2014 then the intellectual side of the genre is in big trouble. Fortunately this is only my opinion and judging by the reviews on Amazon the book has MANY fans who love it, so if you're at all interested you should probably check it out for yourself.
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The Martian by Andy Weir is a different kettle of fish. It's the story of an astronaut on Mars who - through a series of disastrous accidents - is abandoned on the planet by the rest of his crew and must somehow survive without food or water or communication equipment with Earth. Reading like a Mars based version of Ron Howard's Apollo 13 meets the Mythbusters The Martian is an extended series of hard sci-fi engineering problems converted into drama. I mean this not as a criticism but as a compliment. The fact that Mars is an impossibly difficult environment for any human to live on makes every single mistake or accident a potentially fatal one. The Martian is an exciting book and is a classic of what is known as hard science fiction for people who appreciate the beauty of mathematics, engineering and...botany. Yes, botany. The scenes where our stranded Crusoe attempts to grow potatoes (so he won't starve to death) is one of the most fascinating things I've ever read. The fact that Weir tells this story with humour, wit, irony and a brisk economy made this a very enjoyable listen indeed.